Ground dwelling mammal response to fire: A case study from Monga National Park after the 2019/2020 Clyde Mountain fire

Abstract

Ground dwelling mammal communities are documented six months before and after the Clyde Mountain Wildfire of 2019/2020 in Monga National Park. Across eight sites before fire, approximately 12 ground dwelling mammal species were recorded. Survey effort post‐fire increased to 40 sites, spanning three fire severity classes (low, moderate and extreme), revealed 16 ground dwelling mammal species. Species consist of small, medium and large native (one threatened species) and introduced mammals, though consistent with previous findings of ground dwelling mammal diversity in the area. Overall a greater number of species were found in low, compared to moderate and severe fire severity classes. Recovery and detection of mammals occurred in a shorter time period, again, in sites that experienced low, followed by moderate and extreme fire severity.

Increasing fire severity negatively affects greater glider density

“…Since 1938, there have been 66 fires in Monga National Park (MNP); of these, 47 were prescribed burns and 19 were wildfires (Mikac et al 2021). During the Australian megafire event of 2019/2020 (Collins et al 2021), the Currowan fire burnt Monga National Park from 26 November 2019 to 9 February 2020.…”

“…Two large-scale wildfires burnt from west to east in the park, leading to a mosaic of differing fire severities. In total, ~98% of Monga National Park was burnt to some degree, with 87% of burns causing partial or complete canopy consumption (Mikac et al 2021). Fireseverity classification was grouped into three discrete classes based on Fire Extent Severity Mapping (FESMv2.1) data layers and the level of canopy burn (Department of Planning, Environment, and Industry 2020).…”

“…All sites were randomly selected from a large pool of candidate sites across MNP. Random allocation of sites was completed by dividing the study area into 2 km ×2 km grid squares; from this grid, 40 candidate sites were randomly selected (Mikac et al 2021). The 40 sites were then assigned to 'low', 'moderate', and 'high' fire-severity classes on the basis of FESM data.…”

Short‐term impacts of the 2019–20 fire season on biodiversity in eastern Australia

“…The team found that while the number of mammals was greatly reduced immediately after fire, it took 4 months for the full pre-fire complement of species to return and the delay was longest in the more severely burnt sites. More detail of this study can be found in (Mikac et al, 2021) in this special edition.…”